Strength and Conditioning Cricket Dan Thorpe Player Needs Analysis Sporting Analysis Injuries Fitness tests Dynamic warm ups Example sessions

Athlete Needs Analysis High Moderate Low Max Strength x Power Acceleration Agility High intensity sprinting Aerobic capacity Anaerobic capacity

Sporting analysis Intermittent periods of intense action Running Sprinting Jumping Walking Fielding throwing Bowling Batting catching Getting off ground

Quick positional breakdown Batting – explosiveness, dexterity, speed. A faster batter can gain more runs. Bowling – repeated power, flexibility. A fitter bowler will repeat quality time and again with limited physical or mental fatique. Wickett keeper – mobility,agility,power. Fielder – speed, power, agility, Fitter faster fielders recover more balls more of the time and maintain mental focus longer.

Cricket injuries 28.4% to 71.6% of cricketers sustain between 1.61 and 1.91 injuries per season. Most injuries (33.0% to 65.7%) occurred during bowling. Most are first time and reccurent injuries from previous season. Younger players sustain the most, and most severe injuries, keeping them out of the game for up to 21 days. R Stretch 2001

Key points • Schoolboy cricketers mainly suffer injuries to the back and trunk. • Lower-limb injuries are most common in senior cricketers. • Acute soft-tissue injuries are the most common injuries in cricket. • Bowling accounts for most cricket injuries. R stretch 2001

Evaluation, fitness tests Maximum muscular power test – Vertical jump or staircase sprint. Anaerobic capacity – 300 yard shuttle test Agility – 20 yard shuttle Speed – 40 yard sprint Flexibility – sit and reach test Aerobic capacity – bleep test

sessions 3 sessions working to cover a variety of athletic qualities, strength and stability, straight line speed and speed agility. The 3 sessions here are disigned so you can test the players at the same time gaining valuable information to plan individual training, and also provide motivation for players to strive to improve.

Conditioning drills Warm up and preparation – use this time to develop technique, mobility and flexibility. Mobility complex – circled Work through over head squat, lunge, bear crawls, inch worms, grapplers, pogos, skips. Then move into a game based prep eg frisby, netball, bench ball etc keeps interest, motivation and team cohesion, but also prepares the bodies systems to respond to training.

Dynamic warm ups General Warm-up / Movement skills (5-15 minutes) – The goal to increase your core temperature by performing basic movement skills. (Example: bodyweight squats, jumping jacks, skipping etc be creative) Ground-based mobility (5-15 minutes) – should be slightly sweating now and muscle nicely warm, go for ground-based mobility drills for 5 even 15 minutes including grapplers, mountain climbers, groiners, planks, shoulder taps, sprint sits etc Activation drills (2-3 minutes) great to wake or excite central nervous system before beginning training especially speed. drills should only last 5-10 seconds, do 2-3 sets for each like low pogo jumps, wide drops, switch hops etc

Stability focused session Stability circuit - perform 8 -12 repetitions per exercise or until loss of control. Or 30 -40 secs of hold based moves or dynamics like skipping. Rest 30 – 90 secs between stations, reduce rest weekly as stability increases and work capacity rises – but main focus is quality of moves.

Example Stability circuit Pair or group players up to work through the exercises Body weight squats – progression overhead Mountain climbers (last man to drop) Lunges Partner tug of war or band rows Skipping for 40 seconds Shoulder taps for 30 seconds Return to the start and complete 2 more times Finish with game Make competitive once players are confident at all moves eg first team or pair to finish or best scores

Speed focus session Following dynamic warm up. 10 yard sprints working on sprint technique – making game specific with throws to get scores and aid competitiveness. In small groups, best score 6 rounds. 40 yard ball sprint w/throw return, 2 practice runs, 2-3 score rounds. Finish with game Keep same teams throughout session, which ever team acquires most points is winner.

Multidirectional speed agility session Following dynamic warm up. 20 yard shuttle test – practice runs, followed by 3 timed attempts. Specific 20 yard shuttle drill w/throws – paired, 2 -3 goes per team per direction. 3 cone drill – practice runs followed by 3 timed attempts Finish with game